The Forsyte Saga

Concerning the cause of this death--his family would doubtless reject with vigour the suspicion of suicide, which was so
compromising! They would take it as an accident, a stroke of
fate. In their hearts they would even feel it an intervention of
Providence, a retribution--had not Bosinney endangered their
two most priceless possessions, the pocket and the hearth? And
they would talk of 'that unfortunate accident of young Bosinney's,'
but perhaps they would not talk--silence might be better!

As for himself, he regarded the bus-driver's account of the
accident as of very little value. For no one so madly in love
committed suicide for want of money; nor was Bosinney the sort
of fellow to set much store by a financial crisis. And so he too
rejected this theory of suicide, the dead man's face rose too
clearly before him. Gone in the heyday of his summer--and
to believe thus that an accident had cut Bosinney off in the full
sweep of his passion was more than ever pitiful to young Jolyon.

Then came a vision of Soames's home as it now was, and
must be hereafter. The streak of lightning had flashed its clear
uncanny gleam on bare bones with grinning spaces between, the
disguising flesh was gone. . . .

In the dining-room at Stanhope Gate old Jolyon was sitting
alone when his son came in. He looked very wan in his great
armchair. And his eyes travelling round the walls with their
pictures of still life, and the masterpiece Dutch Fishing-Boats at
Sunset seemed as though passing their gaze over his life with its
hopes, its gains, its achievements.

'Ah! Jo!' he said, 'is that you? I've told poor little June. But
that's not all of it. Are you going to Soames's? She's brought it
on herself, I suppose; but somehow I can't bear to think of her,
shut up there--and all alone.' And holding up his thin, veined
hand, he clenched it.

CHAPTER IX
IRENE'S RETURN

AFTER leaving James and old Jolyon in the mortuary of the
hospital, Soames hurried aimlessly along the streets.

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